In a conversation with Keerthana, Correspondent, Higher Education Review Magazine, Janardhanan Narayanaswamy, Chief Human Resources Officer at Stovekraft Limited, he shared his views and thoughts on strategies employed to attract and retain top talent in a competitive market, as well as how we can prioritize and implement learning and development programs to enhance employee skills and capabilities.

Janardhanan N is an HR & Enterprise Leader with extensive experience designing & establishing HR systems & Business Transformation initiatives. He’s a seasoned professional with demonstrated expertise in Managing 3 M&A transitions, including deftly managing IR issues, Managing Change, and building Leadership, Talent & Organizational Capability.

In your opinion, what strategies are employed to attract and retain top talent in a competitive market?

Attraction and Retention of Talent mandates a multipronged approach and is a consistent, progressive process.

Recruitment & Selection: Great leaders consider Talent Acquisition as a serious business and spend close to 20% of their time & efforts and focus on hiring resources (People) which are aligned, integrated and strategy consistent. Typically, a Hiring mistake costs 15 times an employee’s fixed salary in hard costs and productivity loss. They focus on hiring players, “candidates who have at least 90% of achieving a set of outcomes that only the top 10 percent of possible candidates could achieve”. Some of the best hiring practices include pre-defining the SCORECARD consisting of 3 parts; the JOB’s Mission, Outcomes & Competencies. Automation of Recruitment Processes makes the entire process seamless.

Retention of Talent: I see typical outcomes at 4 Pillars of HR delivery which is typically an extension of Gallup Q12, the first one being Recruitment & Selection

On-boarding, contextualizing & Aligning (Q1 to Q3 of Gallup): Tremendous efforts and managerial time is invested in hiring and the time & efforts are leveraged with seamless integration of the new joiner. “The Enthusiastic Beginner (SL II: Kenneth Blanchard)” should be supported through the organisational systems to be impactful and HR has to lead in this intervention. The new employee has to contextualize skills & competencies thereby aligning to the company’s goals & objectives. This mandates clarifying expectations in terms of execution, behaviour and outcomes from the role, the tools and support systems including coaching from the supervisor etc. being a given. Good practices include a 90-day plan for at least the managerial positions to begin with. In case of leadership roles, there are contemporary practices such as “New Leader Assimilation Program” wherein a structured meeting is conducted where the new leader elicits his experiences as well as expectations while s/he’s given feedback by the direct reports, peers and bosses (akin to a 360 degree feedback) in a transparent manner. The leader’s boss should ensure that the feedback is focused on setting the sail for the leader.

We have immense examples of cross-functional teams engaged in inducting a new comer in companies such a Google and these teams are empowered to decide who can be a Googler and who cannot be.

Establishing a Climate where People Excel (Q4 to Q9 of Gallup): Binding employees to the Organisation’s Purpose, Vision and Corporate Objectives is the first pivot in our attempt to improve discretionary efforts since these provide a meaning to the environment. CHRO and CEO should ensure that policies and processes are carefully drafted so they are integrated and strategic consistent with the maturity levels of the organisation, business level strategies and outcomes as well as the external environment.

Manifested values and Leader Behaviours of Managers & Leaders are tantamount to this and this starts with the Senior Management. The review systems, coaching & development, feedback loops, performance management system, reward systems etc. should be carefully chosen to drive a culture of inclusiveness, teamwork and meritocracy.

As quipped by Peter Drucker, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. I extend this to “Structure eats Culture for breakfast”. Organisations need to ensure a well-crated design which creates and promotes Accountability, Initiative, Innovation, Inter-relatedness, Inter-dependencies and Cohesiveness. A nimble, less hierarchical organisation is less bureaucratic and empowering, thereby promoting participation and accountability.

Pulse Surveys should not be treated as a rudimentary tick box process. Leaders need to build TRUST & one of the best mechanisms is to decisively act on the improvement areas coming out of the surveys and employee feedbacks.

Internal Benchmarking before External Benchmarking: Building on Strengths is a strategic initiative. We have one such instance where internal benchmarking worked wonders for us since employees resonated better with internal benchmarks before external benchmarks. Data insights proved that around 18% employees were consistent performers even when a business division or the entire organisation performed below par. When we mapped the focus, time applications and skills of these employees, we identified 17 CSFs (Critical Success Factors) which differentiated their performances. When we cross pollinated these CSFs across the organisation, we got astounding results. The overall performance in each business division and the company improved by over 8% points, growth by 6% points and productivity by over 30%.

Develop People (Q11 to Q12): Typically begin with the leadership team and cascade the initiative downwards considering that a leader’s capability development has a compounding effect on the organisation. Great organisations focus on measuring and developing Leadership Inventory at specific intervals.

Talent Management system mapping “A Players against A positions”, identifying potential talent & bench strength for critical positions, defining career ladders etc. for developing a talent pipeline is a pre-requisite.

For the general population who may not grow vertically, we may need to identify “MUST RETAIN” and provide them lateral opportunities. Here again, the strengths inventory by profiling top performers in the company and developing the general population against this benchmark shall help considering that these top performers are performing against the same context, challenges, complexities and opportunities.

How can we prioritize and implement learning and development programs to enhance employee skills and capabilities?

I emphasise on “Developing People through Work”, thereby on the job training, coaching, reviews and action planning should do wonders. Learning initiatives must shift focus from LEARNING to APPLICATION to RESULTS. An efficient and lucid LMS shall help in standardising and achieving progressive Learning outcomes. Further, there are nudging applications which can continue to nudge employees through their work inputs and throughputs, thereby standardising on the job training & coaching.

In your opinion, how can we leverage HR technology to streamline processes and enhance the employee experience?

CHRO and team should shift the HR delivery focus towards Organisation Specific Critical Success Factors (CSFs). 70-80% of the HR team focus should be on business outcomes and organisational outcomes or the transformational HR practices. This mandates automation of all rudimentary processes such as Time & Attendance, Payroll & Benefits, Recruitment, Documentation etc. Additionally, automating PMS, TMS (Talent Management System) through an integrated HRMS suite shall ensure transparency, consistency and sustainability. Employee Experience BOTS which map the energy, engagement and equity of employees on a real time basis shall help the organisation & leadership to anticipate and be pro-active in addressing challenges and enabling work. While Organisations continue to struggle in binding employees to the Purpose, Vision and Objectives or achieve a Cascade or sustainability of initiatives, there are contemporary audio, video applications as well as podcast platforms for continuous engagement with the employees. Organisations and Leadership should selectively implement technology solutions which are relevant and strategy consistent.